Dhammapada: put ispravnosti

Three weeks after the Buddha's death, five hundred of his arhats and disciples, led by Kasyapa, gathered at Rajagaha to recall the truths they had received from their beloved teacher for forty-five years. As the teacher was no longer among them, the monks had the responsibility to transmit his teaching as faithfully as possible, to make the principles of his message a driving force of moral and spiritual guidance, both for them and for others in remote parts of the country and for all future students who want to enter on the path of the Awakened One. The Dhammapada is, therefore, an oral compilation of the sayings of Gautama which he uttered on approximately three hundred different occasions, that is, a summary of the Buddha's sermons to kings and queens, ministers and merchants, shepherds and peasants, monks and the poor, saints and criminals.